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2019 09 12 WS MinutesMINUTES OF THE REGULAR WORK SESSION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BAYTOWN SEPTEMBER 12, 2019 The City Council of the City of Baytown, Texas met in a Regular Work Session on Thursday, September 12, 2019, at 5:30 P.M., in the Hullum Conference Room of the Baytown City Hall, 2401 Market Street, Baytown, Texas with the following in attendance: Laura Alvarado Council Member Charles Johnson Council Member David Himsel Council Member Heather Betancourth Council Member Robert Hoskins Mayor Pro Tem Chris Presley Council Member Brandon Capetillo Mayor Rick Davis City Manager Ignacio Ramirez City Attorney Leticia Brysch City Clerk Keith Dougherty Sergeant at Arms Mayor Capetillo convened the September 12, 2019, City Council Regular Work Session with a quorum present at 5:30 P.M., all members were present. 1. DISCUSSIONS A. Discuss the City of Baytown's proposed Citizen Engagement Specialist Interim Assistant City Manager Nick Woolery presented the item and noted that the Community Engagement Coordinator is a position that has not been hired but has been approved in the budget. He noted that City Management had promised to bring this item back to Council for an overview of what duties of the position would include prior to hiring. Mr. Woolery noted that community engagement is the work that staff does on behalf of the City in order to keep and facilitate dialogue, create stronger relationships among community members and city government. In other words, it is the City encouraging its community members to talk more, to each other, to us, in addition to actually getting involved and engaged in making this city better. Mr. Woolery noted that the City already engages in a lot of community engagement work; some highlights include: strategic planning, the citizen survey, the Mayor's community engagement advisory committee, CDBG's neighborhood improvement programs, both the Police and Fire City Council Regular Work Session Minutes September 12, 2019 Page 2 of 8 Departments' community outreach programs, the Library via its book clubs and different gatherings, the Public Art program along with the City's social media and Internet. The Community Engagement Coordinator would help fill the gaps and holes in the City's community outreach by bringing together all of the City's efforts, and expanding the City's relationships with its citizens. At a broad level, this person would connect with community organizations, whether they are volunteer groups, neighborhoods, private industry that need a way to work through issues and having somebody to spearhead these issues proactively is critical to the City's success. This position would help connect volunteers, projects with corporate partners, oversee the City's Youth Advisory Committee and Mayor's Summer Youth Program, which are already in existence, but have no real administrator at this time, along with helping with the creation of more robust citizen program such as a true Citizens Academy. The Council briefly discussed the position and agreed to move forward with the hiring of the position. b. Receive and discuss a presentation regarding the proposed outsourcing of the City of Baytown Burglar / Fire Alarm permit and false alarm process. Mr. Woolery presented the item and noted that this item is a collaboration between City Management, the City Clerk's Office, and the Police and Fire Departments. He further noted that staff would be going over the alarm permit and false alarm fees process and how it all works. As the Council is aware, staff has been doing some really good work on really critiquing processes and making sure that they work for all of our customers. The alarm permit is one that is just not working right now and staff wants to go over this process and present a recommendation for Council's consideration. Mr. Woolery noted that the Alarm Code came before the Council around 2010 or 2011 and since then the program has plugged along with some minor changes for the last eight years. He noted that using the data from the past couple of years, staff analyzed the information and found the process ineffective, not just for the City's first respondents, but for the actual costumers; whether they are business owners or residents. Mr. Woolery noted that there are two main components when talking about the alarm permitting system. The first one is the alarm permit itself, it is required yearly, there's no fee associated with it, and its main intent is to provide the City's first responders with up-to-date information on the citizens or the business owners, in order for Police and Fire to respond appropriately and get someone out to the site to secure the facility or the home, should there be a false alarm or situation. The second component is the false alarm billing and the false alarm process. The false alarm system has multiple tiers and after so many, there are some charges associated with it. The issues with this item is that staff has to keep track of the false alarms and since the different software programs do not talk to each other, this requires double inputting, with the City Clerk's Office, Fire and Police, so at any given time staff can be weeks, and sometimes months, behind City Council Regular Work Session Minutes September 12, 2019 Page 3 of 8 on false alarm invoicing and fee collections, as well as, being behind weeks on our permitting process. Mr. Woolery stated that he wanted to give Council the bottom line upfront, and noted that staff s recommendation is to outsource the permitting process. He stated that the idea is to achieve the following main goals: • The first is to increase the total number of homes and businesses with permits in order to increase safety and response times, as well as, because it is actually required; • The second is to decrease the number of false alarms, based on the data staff has collected over the years, it is out of hand and the situation is not improving. Staff wants to improve the accuracy of contact information as this is really critical when a first responder shows up to a scene in order for them to know exactly who to contact; and • Thirdly, to regain valuable staff time, in terms of what administrative staff and first responders are spending on false alarms when they could be spending it on much better things. Mr. Woolery noted that a part of the Process Improvement Program is to always look at all the customers involved, so staff is going to highlight the City's primary customers for this process which are the residents and business owners, and then the brokers; i.e. the ones who actually make the process work, include the City's first responders, City Clerk's staff, Police and Fire staff, and then the dispatchers. Mr. Woolery then noted that in terms of the pain points with the current process for primary customers is getting bills for their excessive false alarms and the difficult permit registration and renewal process. The staff tried to improve it as much as possible in-house, but it remains a really cumbersome process. From the broker's standpoint, the pain points are that the City is sending resources out for false alarms when they could be doing other things; there is incorrect contact information, and really excessive paperwork. Mr. Woolery introduced Assistant Police Chief Mike Holden to talk about some of the data on the police side. Assistant Police Chief Mike Holden noted that there are eleven (11) false alarms per day totaling basically 4,200 false alarms per year; this amounts to 97- 98% of all burglar alarms being false. Chief Holden noted that this is a national problem and many cities and agencies have moved toward a third -party vendor to handle these false alarms because they've had success in this in other areas. Chief Holden noted that the average time police officers spend at an alarm is an estimated 20 minutes, which is from the time of dispatch, in -route to the location, and then getting back into service. Communications dispatches two officers to every alarm whether it is home or business and sometimes more than two officers are dispatched depending on the size of the commercial business or situation. In past years, five or six officers with a canine would be dispatched out to the mall which would take hours to clear the location; this type of call out ties up the police man- hours, which is estimated at about 2,800 hours per year or about $85,000 wasted on false alarm City Council Regular Work Session Minutes September 12, 2019 Page 4 of 8 responses. Essentially, the amount spent on responding to false alarms is the equivalent of one officer's yearly salary. Chief Holden noted that the alarm permit helps officers with the contact information for the home or business owners, which is why it is imperative that the permit on file has the most updated contact information so officers can contact and clear the scene quickly and efficiently, instead of having to wait hours to have someone arrive to secure the location because the permit on file did not have a good contact. Chief Holden noted that the drain on the resources touches more than the officers, but includes the dispatchers which ties up the City's Communications Division. Chief Holden noted that the statistics presented were very conservative and stated that false alarms and lack of good contact information on permits are huge pain points for the Police Department, which could use these resources, time, money, officers, etc., more effectively to increase police presence on the streets and decrease the amount of crime in the City's neighborhoods. Mr. Woolery noted that the numbers being presented are actually pretty conservative m staff wanted to stay on the low -end of the spectrum while still giving the Council a good picture of the issues that Police, Fire and other City staff are dealing with on a daily basis. In response to a question as to why the alarm companies do not do more to hold the alarm holder responsible for updated information and in contacting the City about new permits, Mr. Woolery reminded the Council that the City cannot force private businesses to enforce local ordinances and while new alarm permit installations were communicated to the City, the staff does not have sufficient resources to follow-up with said information. Assistant Fire Chief Dana Dalbey presented the Council with an overview of the alarm permit process and false alarm calls from the Fire Department's perspective and noted that their pain points are very similar to those noted by the Police Department. Chief Dalbey noted that at this time, the Fire Department is averaging 1.6 false alarms per day, and the 3-year averages show that they have grown a little bit over the last year. He further noted that Fire spends about 20 minutes or 19.19 minutes per false alarm, which equates to an average 192 hour per year or about 54% of base salary of a firefighter. Chief Dalbey also noted that firefighters have concerns when running an emergency truck; each engine has four or five firefighters in addition to the lives of citizens that are put at risk when Fire is running emergency traffic on the streets. Chief Dalbey noted that money and resources are issues, safety is a big concern when mobilizing Fire's limited resources across the City, when it could be needed in another district for a true emergency. City Clerk Lettie Brysch presented the following statistics related to the use of Administrative staff for Police, Fire, and the City Clerk's Office and noted that on average the City processes 782 alarm permits and has 1,534 alarm bills per year; however, not every false alarm generates a bill as the tiered system allows for the first 4 as free. She further noted that the average amount of hours spent on this permit by administrative staff is 1, 118 hours per year, which is about $25,606 dollars a year or about 50% of an administrative assistant's yearly salary. City Council Regular Work Session Minutes September 12, 2019 Page 5 of a City Clerk Brysch noted that because of the incompatible software programs used by the many departments, staff is inputting the same information multiple times, which cause inconsistent information, duplication of efforts, delay in processing alarm permits from beginning to end, as well as a delay in processing and billing for false alarm fees. Mr. Woolery stated that in looking at all those hours being spent on permitting, especially on the false alarms, it makes staff think of the City's officers and firefighters who are out there literally responding to situations that are obviously false calls instead of being out on the streets patrolling or available to respond to real emergencies, whether they be related to police, fire or EMS. Mr. Woolery noted that staff had already mentioned the recommended improvement, which is outsourcing as there are a number of vendors who can provide this service. Staff has already spoken to many of them on the types of services that they provide and the data they have shown in terms of the improvements they can provide the City and its citizens. He further noted that how this would work would be that instead of staff handling alarm permitting and false alarm fee invoicing, an outside company would do all the permit registration, education, outreach and false alarm notices and fee invoicing. The new system would include enhanced services to the public such as a mobile application, real time permit access and changes via a website. The new system would also create enhancements for the staff as the system works directly with the RMS system so police and fire would have immediate access to new permits, and information, thus, eliminating the 30-day permitting process delay. Mr. Woolery noted that one of the most important components of the proposed system included a strong outreach and education component to help reduce false alarms and increase citizen compliance with the alarm permitting process and ordinance. Mr. Woolery showed that the part of the program that staff wants the Council's input related to the need for the implementation of a small alarm permit fee, as well m some updates to the false alarm tiers. The recommended changes are the following: Yearly Alarm Permit Fees: Add the following alarm permit fees per year as follow a. $15.00 for each new/renewed residential burglar/fire alarm permit. b. $30.00 for each new/renewed commercial burglar/fire alarm permit. c. There is no fee associated with changes or amendments to information on an existing burglar/fire alarm permit. False Alarm Fees: Add the following false alarm fees per year calendar year as follow: a. Police False Alarm Fees: Residential: • $50.00, if the location has had more than three but fewer than six other false alarms which have occurred during the term of the permit. • $75.00, if the location has had more than six but fewer than eight other false alarms which have occurred during the term of the permit. • $100.00, if the location has had eight or more false alarms which have occurred during the term of the permit. City Council Regular Work Session Minutes September 12, 2019 Page 6 of R Commercial: • $50.00, if the location has had more than three but fewer than six other false alarms which have occurred during the term of the permit. • $75.00, if the location has had more than six but fewer than eight other false alarms which have occurred during the term of the permit. • $100.00, if the location has had eight or more false alarms which have occurred during the term of the permit. b. Fire False Alarm Fees: Residential: • $50.00, if the location has had more than three but fewer than six other false alarms which have occurred during the term of the permit. • $75.00, if the location has had more than six but fewer than eight other false alarms which have occurred during the term of the permit. • $100.00, if the location has had eight or more false alarms which have occurred during the term of the pemrit. Commercial: • $100.00, if the location has had more than three but fewer than six other false alarms which have occurred during the term of the permit. • $200.00, if the location has had more than six but fewer than eight other false alarms which have occurred during the tern of the permit. • $250.00, if the location has had eight or more false alarms which have occurred during the tern of the permit. Mr. Wooley noted that in general, if the City outsourced this program and process, on average and using low -end numbers, the City could look at a reduction of 1,500 false alarms per year, which staff would consider a huge success. This conservative reduction would free up a thousand public safety personnel hour; per year, which would put our first responders back on the streets. Additionally, through outsourcing, it would free up basically all of the noted administrative staff, which is about 1, 100 hours per year, thus, freeing up a total of about 2,200 hours a year of staff time. Mr. Woolery noted that if the Council was supportive of outsourcing, this would be the first step for staff. The next step would be bringing some changes to the code for Council approval and conduct an RFQ to bring the Council a preferred vendor for approval. Staff would then work with the vendor on conducting educational outreach by working with the City's public affairs team regarding this kind of revised permitting program. The vendor would then implement the program and continue a robust educational outreach to residents and businesses, which staff would make a requirement in the RFQ. Mr. Woolery noted that the goal was to find a vendor that is going to work with staff and meet the needs of the City. City Council Regular Work Session Minutes September 12, 2019 Page 7 of 8 Council Member Himsel asked if the alarm permit holders' benefit from having the permit directly and if so he was in favor of the proposed fees as people should have to pay fees and everything else associated with the permit, when they are directly benefiting from that alarm or permit. He further noted that people who do not have alarms should not have to share the costs of others having alarm systems forever. So I do agree with that. Council Member Himsel noted that he has not given much thought to the outsourcing of permit, but was open to the idea. Council Member Alvarado asked if the permit fees were yearly and if so recommended that staff give permit holders an incentive to renew their permits timely by reducing the permit fee for renewals. Mayor Capetillo noted that while he was in favor of outsourcing, he was not in favor of adding any alarm permit fees. City Clerk Brysch noted that the permit fees would be yearly and staff would look at options to reduce the renewal fees by $5.00 if done timely. She also noted that the proposed program would, in addition to relieving staff resources, provide more services for the customer by providing real time permit processing and updates, where today, it can be anywhere from three to six weeks to fully process a permit. She further noted in response to question from the Council, that would an alarm systems holder not apply for the required City permit, they can be fined up to a $250.00 fine if a false alarm is called into Communications and they do not have a valid permit on file with the City. Assistant Chief Holden noted that the police officers have issued these citations to folks if they do not have a permit on file; however, while compliance has a little uptick, compliance tends to fall right back down. Assistant Chief Holden and Assistant Chief Dalbey clarified that they will respond to any alarm whether it be false, so it is not an issue of not responding, it is about (1) getting the scene cleared as quickly as possible when responding, which is why they need more compliance and up to date contact information and (2) to educate the public about false alarms and help reduce them. In response to a question from the Council, City Clerk Brysch noted that weather related alarms are exempted in the Code and are not counted as a false alarm for fine purposes. She further noted that the proposal on the table is similar to what was presented by Public Works as it relates to outsourcing the P-Slip program, which is now being handled by a third party that has the expertise, connections and resources related to this program. The alarm systems and false alarm third party process being presented is in that same thought process. She further noted that the main idea is not to generate revenue, but instead it is about increasing compliance, which means citizens who have alarm systems are permitted with correct/updated information, in order to reduce the time first responders are on the street, and reduce the number of false alarms. City Clerk Brysch noted that in the last eight years, the alarm permit has not sustained itself and is not working, because if anything, false alarms are trending up and compliance is trending down. After further discussion, the consensus was for staff to move forward with the item and bring back a negotiated agreement to outsource the alarm permit and program with a strong education, City Council Regular Work Session Minutes September 12, 2019 Page 8 of 8 outreach and technological component for the citizens and end users, and related code amendments. C. Discuss any or an of the agenda items on the City Council Regular Meeting Agenda for September 12, 2019, which is attached below. This item was not taken. 2. ADJOURN With there being no further business to discuss, Mayor Capetillo adjourned the September 12, 2019 ity Council Regular Work Session at 6:33 P.M Leticia Brysch, City Clerk a . City of Baytown 'rT�1j ty fi